If your DH / DP travels for work

[Blahdyblahbla]

Do you make a fuss of them when they get home?

I was just speaking to a school mum who thinks I'm absolutely rotten for not collecting DH from the airport this evening and letting him get the train.

Is it normal drag the dc around doing collections and welcoming home the returning hero?

After 5 days of wrangling the dc and working I don't manage more than a hello and a hug when he gets in before telling him he's incharge of the kids and taking myself off for a run or something

Is he a returning hero from war zone after 9 months?
(Maybe yes)
Or just yet another routine trip?
(No)

hahaha no. He’d be the first to admit that going off on a work jolly is much easier than doing all the parenting alone for a week. If anything he greets me with chocolates.

I'd pick him up from the local station but no more than that. Luckily for us dh's work pay for him to be driven.

No. I've never met my DH when he returns home & he's been travelling for the 34+ years of our marriage.

Maybe your friend finds it unusual that your DH travels and it would therefore be a 'big deal' to her? I know couples who never, ever spend a night apart. Personally I would hate that ... not looking forward to retirement .

It’s me who does the traveling and I always make my own way home (unless it was maybe a special occasion) assuming it’s been a shortish trip ie less than a fortnight

Ha ha ha. In this house we both travel for work, and the returnee better be coming through the door and ready to do house work to make up for what they've missed.

My DH’s company used to send a car to the airport to collect him so I never did. I didn’t make a fuss of him either, I think he’d have liked me to.

These are just short regular European trips, a few day a few times a month.
Actually yes thinking about it the friend who pulled me up and her husband never spend time apart, so it probably would be a bigger deal to her.
DH has an unlimited expense account for trains, taxis etc, so me schelping to the airport makes zero sense

Absolutely not. She’s bonkers. That would be what my mother would term “making a rod for your own back”.

Also for several years I was travelling frequently for work and he never picked me up, nor did I expect him to (I just cherished the extra 30 minutes of alone time).

Hell no. It would be most weeks in a pre covid world.

But I also totally understand my colleague who is a military wife making a big deal about it having not seen him for 6 months.

I used to travel a lot for work and would never have expected this. Parenting alone is hard, I was grateful

I do the airport run but it’s literally a 30 minute round trip so it would be a bit mean not to! If it’s mega early I do it in dressing gown and go back to bed . Can’t remember what we did when DC were small, but it was more UK travel with occasional trans Atlantic in those days.

No way, like @Ragwort I have been with DH for many years and he has always travelled for work, usually Mon-Fri to Europe but longer trips too. I have never taken him to the airport or collected him. In the early days we did really miss each other, especially as sometimes he was gone for a month and when he got home we might have done something special.

Once we had DC it was more about survival mode and as I also worked full time I was usually the one who needed rescuing when he returned.

I don't think the other school mum has any idea!

Nope. DH travels quite regularly (pre Covid) and I don't. I only travel rarely and DH insists on taking me/collecting me from the airport which I find completely unnecessary as I can expense a taxi but I know he's just being kind.

I work away from home up to a couple of weeks at a time and I've never expected to be picked up or made a fuss of on my return, even before having a child.

Granted, my workplace is 45 minutes away, so I drive myself to it before taking another vehicle out for the trip, so I just drive myself home again at the end.

Maybe if I were travelling by train and the times were reasonable we would arrange pick-up/drop-offs at the station to save on parking charges, and I would do the same for her.

As far as making a fuss of me goes though, once I'm through the door it's straight into Dad mode (after the dog has her mandatory few minutes smothering me).

Absolutely not, why would I drag dc out and spend petrol when it’s on expenses? There have been exceptions over the years- picking up and going straight on to do something else and once dc were big enough to be left I’d do short airport trips when taxis were unreliable.

Lol no. Before covid DH tracked a lot, nothing for the last 18 months but it's starting to pick up again. I'll do a station pick up, but airport picks up no (we used to live in London and I wasn't driving to Heathrow for any man). We live elsewhere now but even so the airport isn't an easy journey. Plus he's been in 5* hotels having nice dinners and not looking after a toddler. I'm the one who needs a break! If he's been in the US I'm expecting a present and a takeaway minimum

WTAF Is she a steptford wife

Nope, absolutely not & I certainly wouldn't have expected it of DH either when I was off on work trips

I'm not sure I'd say collecting from the airport or station is making a fuss.

I often collect my partner from the station, then we'll collect food or something. But I don't have children so I haven't been looking after them without a rest while he's away.

On a few, very rare occasions, DH or I have dropped or collected the other to/from the airport for work trips. But only when it really suited us both.

Dh actually didn't want to be dropped at one stage, as he was doing an 18 hour trip every 2 weeks to get to/from a project, which went on for 4 years. It was during the last recession, the overseas project was really hard work and very political, and he really, really missed us as it was 2 weeks full-on out there (and it was a developing country with lots of crime and other problems) and 2 weeks full-on back here as he had to cram what had used to be a full-time job into 2 weeks (there were fewer projects, but just as much admin). So he needed the time on the bus to the airport to get his head ready to travel, and to wake up from an overnight flight and be ready to deal with a boisterous young primary schooler when he got in.

Besides which, travel in our case usually involves unsocial hours (getting up at 3.30am for 6am flights, or only landing at 11.45pm so not home until about 1am). Which was not suitable times to drag DD out when she was younger.

No because we live 1 1/2 hours away from Heathrow and normally DH takes a red eye, landing at 6am-ish. The company pays for cabs.

If he has a European flight and goes via London City he normally takes the train/DLR and I may (depending on time) pick him up at our local station. But too often he comes back when I am still at work.

Saying that, when he is home after a red eye I better have tea and breakfast ready after he showers.

Nope. Not unless there was a specific issue making it difficult for him to get home. Or because me and the kids fancy a cake at the airport cafe.

I think for people who don't have a partner who travels for work, it'll seem like a big thing.

If they do, it's like meh.

Id go and pick him up from his office if it was convenient. Or drop him off. But it was 3 miles away. (And he only got transport from there, although sometimes his driver could drop him off nearby on the way past).
However now he weekly commutes. He gives me a break at the weekends. He couldn't come home last weekend or this weekend due to DDs isolating, so he triple owes me next weekend.

I travel and DH has never met me at the airport. Maybe the train station at a push and if time wise it works.

If the petrol situation doesn't sort itself out by next weekend and he gets the train home, ill pick him up at the train station then.